Japan's Nikkei 225 has overtaken most global market indices in 2023 to become the best performer to date, whilst the region continues to post bumper growth figures and is up 6% year-on-year.
This rally is in large part a result of prime minister Shinzo Abe's 2014 and 2015 corporate governance reforms that were introduced to shake up the way companies operated. In fact, the reforms are now being embedded into business. Meanwhile, fresh guidelines addressing corporate takeovers with a focus on best practices were released by the government earlier this year.
As a result, Nikko Asset Management's Junichi Takayama believes 2023 will be remembered as a year when hostile takeovers became official in Japan.
"We now have a lot of activists in the Japanese markets, close to 70 targeting Japanese investors," Nikko's Takayama said in our recent Investment Talks, Japan webinar. "But there are still a lot of companies with naïve management and no clear dividend policy, so we are hopeful that these companies will change their stance and become even more shareholder friendly."
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